The Singing Sustainability Philosophers of Bangladesh

The Singing Sustainability Philosophers of Bangladesh

Alan AtKisson, 8 Apr 04

I keynoted an international conference on sustainability in Western Australia not long ago, and they put up a really great site where you can download everybody's papers and presentations.

So I went cruising around it recently, and I found something really wonderful, something I never heard about before.

The Bauls. The singing philospher-gurus of Bangladesh.

These are a mendicant class of gurus and spiritual leaders who live simply, make music (which I still haven't managed to actually hear), and sing about ... sustainability.

Apparently, they have songs about thinking systemically and long term, and managing water resources wisely, and other such cool stuff. They teach their followers to be wise about how they use the earth, and not consume too much. No milk, for example, unless you're a kid or an old person who actually needs it, otherwise it's really being wasted, "pouring water into a full jar".

If I weren't happily home with kids, I'd probably pick up and go to Bangladesh to listen to them. Instead, however, I recommend this paper, by Amzad Hossain and Dora Marinova, of Murdoch University. (It's supposedly about "tools" for sustainability, but it's really about life in Bangladesh as a model for sustainability.) Read especially the Appendix, which describes the day in the life of a Baul guru.

Here's what I found by way of a short explanation of Baul philosophy, in more general terms, the caption to the beautiful photo here:

Kangaleni Shuphia is a female Baul singer. Baul songs represent the philosophical identity of the rural Bengali culture. Baul is not only a kind of music, it is basically a Bengali religious sect. Bauls dedicate their lives to music, song and meditation, and belong to an unorthodox devotional tradition. The Bauls themselves are opposed to institutional practices, rites and customs, scriptures and speculative literature. Caste, special deities, temples and sacred places play no part in Baul ideology. They do not set up any images of divinities or religious symbols in their own places of worship. They believe their own body is the temple where the supreme resides.

If you find MP3 files or other useful links about these folks, please post comments!